1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to technologies to enable group discussion and consensus building among participants in an online environment.
2. Background of the Related Art
Web-based participation technologies for enabling online discussion forums are well-known. These include, without limitation, Web 2.0-based content such as blogs, wikis, social networks, online voting, and the like. Users who participate in online discussions of this type can publish content, provide comments, respond to other user comments, initiate new conversational threads, vote on what they like or dislike, and the like. While these approaches provide useful forums for enabling online content publication and discussion, they generate large amounts of unstructured interactions that are often difficult for participants to follow. As a consequence, these types of forums have not proven useful in certain circumstances, e.g., to facilitate consensus building with respect to given content under discussion. For example, in a typical discussion thread, one user may comment on a point made by a prior user that takes the discussion into an unrelated or irrelevant issue. Once this occurs, other participants may then be unable to return the thread back to a main discussion point or to respond to earlier posts of interest. As a result, the forum may quickly disintegrate into relatively useless and unstructured discussion among the more “vocal” participants while the overall information quality and utility deteriorates.